Roundball Classic: Wildcats find their way vs. Rose Hill

Zack Klemme, The Daily Independent, Ashland, Ky.
·5 min read

Dec. 12—CANNONSBURG — Bath County made 59.0% of its floor shots on Saturday afternoon and Rose Hill Christian converted 32.4% of its attempts, and yet Wildcats coach Bart Williams came away a bit exasperated with how competitive the Boyd County Roundball Classic matinee was for a stretch.

More than that — the Royals led, 28-24, 10 minutes into the game after Chase Pennington converted consecutive 3-pointers.

Never mind that Bath County was off to its best start in nine years and had claimed its first Eastern Kentucky Conference Tournament title since 1984 two days earlier, while Rose Hill was winless.

"If I knew why good teams play really bad after playing really good, I'd write a book," Williams said. "If it's the NFL, college, pro, it doesn't matter, for some reason, there's trap games, and sure, we came down here this week and played well at Russell (in the EKC) against good competition, and everybody told us how good we were, and we came out really flat today. I wish I knew the secret, and I'd write a book and retire."

After Pennington put Rose Hill up four, Williams took a timeout and relayed some of those same themes to the Wildcats. The result: a 37-7 run for Bath County over a span of about 10 minutes. The Wildcats pulled away to a 76-56 victory.

"Obviously, we were a little more talented and finally made enough plays," Williams said. "Zack and Tyler turned it on there, made a few plays, but give (Rose Hill) credit. They shot the ball really well and started believing in themselves and made it a really good game."

The aforementioned "Zack and Tyler" — that's Zack Otis and Tyler Buckhanon — combined for 50 of the Wildcats' 76 points. Buckhanon scored 27 points — 16 in the first half — and grabbed 10 rebounds, along with two one-handed dunks. Otis notched 23 points, with 18 coming of them before halftime.

Otis rattled off six points in the last 73 seconds of the second quarter, the last on a steal and transition layup at :08, as Bath County within the final 1:46 of the second frame turned a three-point edge into an 11-point lead at the half.

Rose Hill (0-5) canned eight 3-pointers in the first half and 11 for the game, while Bath County was 0 for 7 from the perimeter.

"Realistically, we hadn't been shooting the ball really well," Royals coach Charlie Wilcoxen said. "We had a really good shooting night the first half. That kept us in it."

Concurred Williams: "I don't care who you're playing, if they hit a bunch of 3s and we don't hit any, they're gonna be in the game. We don't shoot the 3 very well; that's not a secret."

But Rose Hill missed all five of its third-quarter trey tries as Bath County outscored the Royals 21-10 in that frame.

Pennington scored 18 points, Christian Blevins pitched in 17 — including five treys — and Luke Pennington added 12 for Rose Hill.

Judah Hill totaled 10 points off the bench for the Wildcats (4-1), who extended their best start since 2010-11.

Bath County outrebounded the Royals 38-29 but committed 20 turnovers to Rose Hill's 16.

"Defensively, we looked a whole lot better than we have," Wilcoxen said. "There's a lot of positives. Our guys are starting to realize, hey, we can't out-jump people; we gotta box out. We're not the tallest group."

First-year coach Wilcoxen sees the Royals making progress despite dropping their first five against a slate that included Teays Valley Christian (West Virginia), Ashland and the Wildcats.

"When you play these three teams in your first (five) games, you're gonna get frustrated because you're losing," he said, "but there were some positives."

Bath County beat Rose Hill for the 10th consecutive time. The Royals last defeated the Wildcats in the 2009 16th Region All "A" Classic semifinals.

(606) 326-2658 — zklemme@dailyindependent.com

ROSE HILL FG FT REB TP

L. Pennington 5-19 0-0 3 12

Blevins 6-13 0-0 3 17

C. Pennington 7-17 1-4 6 18

Wilburn 2-8 0-0 1 5

Rucker 2-4 0-0 6 4

Crawford 0-4 0-0 1 0

Hensley 0-3 0-0 1 0

Daniel 0-0 0-0 1 0

Boss 0-0 0-0 0 0

Team 7

TOTAL 22-68 1-4 29 56

FG Pct.: 32.4. FT Pct.: 25.0. 3-pointers: 11-32 (Blevins 5-10, C. Pennington 3-6, L. Pennington 2-8, Wilburn 1-5, Hensley 0-3). PF: 7. Fouled out: None. Turnovers: 16.

BATH CO. FG FT REB TP

Sorrell 2-8 0-0 3 4

Wilson 4-6 0-0 2 8

Otis 11-13 1-1 6 23

Buckhanon 12-15 3-4 10 27

Grigsby 2-3 0-0 5 4

Butcher 0-1 0-0 0 0

Hill 5-8 0-0 3 10

St. John 0-1 0-0 3 0

McCoy 0-3 0-0 2 0

Smith 0-1 0-0 0 0

McCarty 0-0 0-0 2 0

Means 0-2 0-0 0 0

Team 2

TOTAL 36-61 4-5 38 76

FG Pct.: 59.0. FT Pct.: 80.0. 3-pointers: 0-7 (Sorrell 0-4, Wilson 0-1, Butcher 0-1, Means 0-1). PF: 8. Fouled out: None. Turnovers: 20.

ROSE HILL 20 11 10 15 — 56

BATH CO. 22 20 21 13 — 76

Officials: Brian Taylor, Bill Renzi and Blake Rosner.